Growth Rings
by Emmeebee
Summary: Lily's favourite pastime is to explore and daydream with her father. One day, he takes her to a forest and introduces her to the concepts of growth rings and dendrochronology. Years later, when faced with the task of dealing with James Potter and fighting a war for her own freedom, she clings to that day and his advice.
1. The Land of the Fairies

Kneeling beside a large rock, she pokes the mossy undergrowth, giggling with amusement at its strange texture. It looks like a perfect playground for baby fairies testing out their wings for the first time, so she looks around for evidence of fey life. Tuney can insist that magic isn't real as much as she likes, but Lily knows better. And, to her never-ending joy, their father does, too. Whenever she hears her sister or her mother dismiss her fantasies as mere imagination, she rolls her eyes and drowns them out with the memory of her father telling her that nature is too perfectly chaotic for there not to be something else out there. She might not understand what 'chaotic' means, but it sounds beautiful, and it never fails to reassure her.

Needless to say, exploring the outside world with her father is her favourite thing _ever_.

"Lily, come here," he calls, and the young girl leaves the little wonderland and runs over to him, eager to see what he might have found. "Have you seen a tree stump up close before?"

She shakes her head, sending her red plaits bouncing around like a cat toy. "Only in books."

"Do you want to?"

She nods enthusiastically, and he steps back to reveal an old, wizened cylinder sticking up out of the ground. Its sides look much like she would have expected – just like any tree, really – but its top is flat and has a strange series of circles covering it.

"See those rings?" her father asks, tracing one of them with his index finger. "They're called growth rings. They show the tree's age. The more rings a stump has, the older the tree was when it was cut down."

She reaches out and tenderly runs her finger along one of the other rings until it ends up back where it started. "There are so many of them," she whispers. "This one must have been _ancient_."

His merry laughter steals her attention like a pixie wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting family, and she looks up with an entranced smile on her face. "'Ancient' might be a bit of an exaggeration," he says, his voice warm, "but it does look like it was pretty old. You know, people actually go to uni to learn how to tell how old trees are."

"But can't you just count the rings?"

Her father chuckles. "There's a little more to it than that. They don't always just grow one ring a year; things like midsummer droughts can make them grow more than one in a year. I guess the tree thinks that the cycle of seasons has already finished or something. Even the distance between the rings says things about what weather conditions were like at the time."

Awe and wonder flitter across her face as she looks back down at the tree stump, and her hands wander across it as if it's a magnet drawing her in, making it impossible for her to be near it without gravitating towards it. "People can work out all of that from this?"

"It's amazing, isn't it? You never know what's inside something until you look – _really_ look – for it. It's just like a birthday present; you can have fun guessing what's inside, but you can never really know for sure until you open it up."

Her eyes light up like emerald fire. "Can I have a tree stump for my birthday? I won't ask for anything else, I _promise_."

"I'll talk to your mother about it and see what we can come up with," he tells her, and she squeals in delight before throwing her arms around him. "Should we continue on to the river now?"

She nods against his chest but, when she pulls back so that she can glance around at the other trees, petulantly adds, "I wish we could see how many rings those trees have."

"Unfortunately, we'd have to cut them down for that. And we wouldn't want to do that, would we? We need to cut trees down so we can build things and light fires and study nature, but we shouldn't do it unless we need to."

"We shouldn't," Lily says in agreement, her face the picture of seriousness, "because that would mean the fairies would have to find somewhere else to live."

"Exactly," he agrees. "And we wouldn't want that, would we?"

"Never."

"Never ever?"

Recognising the familiar game, she grins as she says, "Never, ever, _ever_."

"Well, that's certainly a good reason to leave them be," he jokes.

She turns back to trace the lines on the tree stump again, and they fall into companionable silence. After a few moments, however, she ruefully says, "Daddy, you don't have to cut down a tree just for me."

Laughing, he takes her hand in his. "How about this: we won't cut down any trees that wouldn't need to be removed anyway."

"Okay," she replies. "But make sure you're _really_ sure first."

* * *

A/N: …I'm reading Anne of Avonlea and obsessing over the second season of Green Gables Fables at the moment, and that might have leaked over here a little. Favourite literary redheads, though, right?

Anyway, I'm thinking of extending this, but I'm going to wait until this round of the competition is over to work on any other chapters.

On that note:

Hogwarts Writing Club Competition – prompt: rings

Word count: 828


	2. Hacking Away

A/N: I think this will end up being about seven chapters long.

* * *

The warmth of the sun embraces her like a long lost friend, and she lets herself get lost in the sensation. With all of the stress that sixth year has been piling up on her, it feels positively blissful to just lay there doing nothing. Nothing matters while she's under the distant star's watchful gaze; schoolwork, family problems, and friendship dramas fade away like darkness exposed to light.

No plans. No thoughts. No worries.

Distant cheers rise up, sounding so very like the roar of the ocean, and she smiles at the sound. Her peaceful reprieve is, really, thanks to a group of fourth year Hufflepuffs who decided to organise a friendly intra-house Quidditch gala day and managed to convince Madam Pomfrey to referee. Although the games themselves are restricted to the badgers, most of the school went down to the pitch after breakfast to watch the festivities, leaving the rest of the grounds virtually uninhabited.

 _I needed this,_ she thinks as she languidly lifts her wand to cast another Sun Protection Charm over her freckled skin. It, so much more efficient than sunscreen, is one of her favourite practical spells, saving her from the woes of having such sun-sensitive skin. _All work and no break drives Lily stir-crazy._

Humming softly under her breath, she tilts her head back so her face can soak up more of the sun. Just as her eyes start to flutter closed, a booming laugh cuts through the tranquillity, violently tearing her out of her zone.

It's not the laugh itself that does it; it's the fact that she recognises exactly who it's coming from.

Twisting around, she scampers behind the nearest tree. Then, cowering in the cover of its shade, she flicks her wand and mutters a quick charm to pack up her gear. The blanket and her notebook fold themselves up and levitate into the shoulder bag she brought down with her. Peering around the thick trunk of the tree as the spell finishes working its magic, she spots the group – _small horde_ , her brain supplies; _like demons_ – of boys working their way across the grounds. It's tempting to summon the bag immediately, but she decides to wait until she has had a chance to appraise the situation.

"Not here, Prongs," Remus chides Potter, his voice fairly quiet but still audible against the backdrop of silence. "At least wait until we're back at the dorm."

Black grins, and surprise rushes through her at the realisation that he actually uses that smug grin in contexts other than harassing younger students. Apparently, it's just him… _grinning_. She honestly isn't sure if it's worse or better this way. "But teasing you is so much fun."

"Besides, no one's here. Everyone's watching the games," Potter adds, turning in a slow circle as he sweeps an arm out at the wide open space as if to prove his point.

Remembering some advice from a book she once read, Lily forces herself to move slowly as she starts to shuffle back behind the tree. Unfortunately, amateur camouflage isn't her forte; a chameleon, she is _certainly_ not.

As soon as Potter's brown eyes glance over in her direction, his gaze locks onto her like one of those heat-seeking missiles Tuney's friends gossiped about the last time she saw them. She's sure that he would insist it is more like a boat finally reaching port, but, to her mind, he's fixated and deadly. Her muscles clench up under the force of his gaze. His specific combination of arrogance, charm and pigheadedness make him a pest to be reckoned with, and she is determined not to underestimate his propensity for chaos.

When she first told her parents about him, they insisted that there was surely more to him than met the eye, encouraging her to put herself first but to have an open mind about him. Years and multitudes of examples of his widespread harassment, however, managed to convince them otherwise. Given that everything she has seen seems to point towards the idea that he is vain and uncaring, she can't imagine there being any deeper levels hidden inside that unfortunately popular jerk of a boy, let alone something truly positive. If a dendrochronologist were to cut him down to size to discover his age, they would find only a thin stump with very few growth rings.

 _He's a small, arrogant child with nothing to him but a powerful name and a sadistic proclivity for harassing people,_ she thinks venomously as he tells his friends something that draws all of their gazes towards her. _Besides, it's a false metaphor, anyway; he's not the tree here. Everyone else are the trees, and he and his little friends are the hobbyists who hack away at other people just to watch them fall apart._

Forced to accept that she has been seen, she quickly summons her bag to her, deciding that her best bet is to make a run for it. When the satchel reaches her, she swiftly grabs it out of thin air and slings it over her shoulder. Fleeing really is her only option now; there's no way that Potter will ever simply leave her be. Fixing her gaze on the castle, she starts to stride across the expansive grounds, wishing – not for the first time – that the walk weren't quite long. She knows she won't be able to get there in time, but it is nevertheless her best chance of evading them.

"There you are, Miss Evans!"

The familiar voice of her favourite professor startles her, and she spins around in shock. The older wizard is still a distance away from her, but he awkwardly jogs to catch up. "Professor?"

"It's wonderful to run into you. How is that essay going? I was worried it might be too hard, but your class needs a challenge. Of course, I daresay you think it's as simple as pie."

"It was a bit confusing at first," she replies, "but I like a good brainteaser."

"Indeed, indeed." Appearing to notice the empty grounds for the first time, the scatterbrained professor suddenly asks, "Why aren't you at the games? I thought you enjoyed Quidditch."

"Oh, I do." Out of the corner of her eye, she notices that Potter and his friends are still approaching them, albeit much slower. Talking to a professor won't buy her a total reprieve, then, but at least it will buy her some time. "I just prefer it in small doses. I watched a rather exciting close game earlier, but I left when the next one started. Did you just come from there?"

"I did. It was most exciting. Such a good idea, don't you think? Giving people who didn't make the team a chance to play… I might have to have a little chat with the students behind it sometime soon. Unfortunately, however, I have a stack of first and third year papers to mark, so I must be off if I'm to have any chance of finishing them by Monday." He gives her a frown that is comically emphasised in a way that she knows is meant to draw her in. "A few of them have potential, you know, but most of them are still determined to stick to the textbook. What is Potions if not experimentation? But I'm afraid some of them will never see that."

An idea crosses her mind, and she flashes him a charismatic smile. "Would you like some help?"

His eyes light up at the idea, but he politely asks, "Wouldn't you rather do something else? Your own homework, perhaps, or just relaxing?"

"Not at all," she replies with complete honesty.


	3. Unobserved

Burrowing deeper into her woollen coat, she tries to ignore the icy kisses the air is laying on her. Despite the many layers of winter clothes she has draped around herself, the cold still manages to seep through to her skin. Sighing in tired frustration and bemoaning the fact that warming charms make her feel all stuffy and gross, she continues hurrying through the winding castle corridors. She would love to be back in the Gryffindor common room, wrapped up in a blanket with her friends by the fireplace, but she is determined not to give up until she has found the missing third year. Although she totally understands why the girl might want solitude at a time like this, she can't in good conscience let her spend the night alone in some random classroom. So, even if she can't coax Jenny into confiding in her, she hopes that she will be able to persuade the girl to return to her dormitory. There, at least, she is sure to stay safe and warm, although Lily suspects that that's the last thing the girl cares about at the moment.

Her heart aches for the introverted thirteen-year-old. How can someone so young make it through something as horrific as being told that her twin sister was murdered by a lone Death Eater? How will she ever feel alright again when every mirror and every photograph will serve as a brutal reminder of her loss?

How will she face her classmates again when she knows that some of them recognise the murderer as a beloved family friend and would pardon him for the crime on the argument that her late sister was inferior just because, by chance, she wasn't the one born with magic?

 _Where is she?_ she wonders, almost desperately, as she turns into another corridor. _Maybe I should try calling out for her after all._ She has been resisting the urge to do that in case the girl takes it as a cue to hide, but it's so tempting to just succumb to the temptation anyway. _She might fall for a game of Marco Polo,_ her mind supplies artfully. _What self-respecting Muggle-born can resist?_

She forces herself to push away her tired thoughts and presses on in reluctant silence. As much as the quiet, so out of place in as castle as occupied and boisterous as Hogwarts, makes her feel like her search is going nowhere, it seems like the best way to find the girl. Besides, while she – as Head Girl – is authorised to break curfew at her own discretion, she doesn't exactly want to draw attention to herself or to Jenny. It would just cause more issues that neither of them needs.

The almost stifling silence is soon broken by the sound of distant sobbing. Quiet and muffled but unmistakably broken, the heartbreaking noise offers itself up like a path of breadcrumbs, and Lily follows it to a fairly isolated classroom. She rubs her gloved hands together in an attempt to create more warmth and takes a fortifying breath before then making her way through the open door.

She stops in shock at the threshold, one foot on either side of it as if she's atop a horse. There, sitting on a canary yellow armchair in the middle of the room, is Jenny – and beside her, with one arm wrapped around the girl's shoulder as she rests her head against his tear-drenched robes, is none other than James Potter.

"It's not fair," the girl is saying over and over again. "How could they do something like this?"

His impassioned reply is so quiet that Lily almost misses it. "I don't know."

"But I don't understand."

This time, he lets the words sit between them. As Lily watches on, trying to work out whether to retreat or to sit on the girl's other side, James glances up to meet her gaze squarely. She is surprised to see evidence of tears glittering in his hazel eyes; they might have agreed to tolerate one another, but it's strange for her to see him so openly emotional. Understanding seems to pass between them for what she is certain is the first time in their lives, and a melancholic smile pulls at her lips in acknowledgment.

"I've got her," he mouths, accompanying the action with some kind of vague hand movement. It takes a few moments for her to piece the two together and make out what he is trying to say.

Her gaze drifts to the broken girl once more. _His presence is helping her more than mine would,_ she realises. Unsure what to make of that, she gives him a brief nod and silently backs out of the room. Then, with one last glance at the two of them, she turns and strides away.

Gratitude and relief floods through her at the knowledge that he is taking care of the girl and giving her the support she needs, but she can't help but be taken aback by the realisation of how well he's doing it. The two head students agreed to put their history aside and cooperate at the beginning of the year, allowing them to have a somewhat amicable working relationship. Still, she has never before thought him capable of such maturity. Until this point, he has appeared to be respecting the rules out of reluctant obligation rather than any real sense of duty or honour. The idea that he might have purposefully sought Jenny out, despite knowing that Lily and her friends were scouring the castle for her and would be more than capable of keeping her company, just doesn't compute with what she knows of him. Yet, apparently, there he is, doing just that. And he seems to be approaching it from a position of genuine support rather than trying to distract the girl with pretty light shows or loud and abrasive jokes.

 _I suppose,_ she admits with no small amount of reluctance, _that he has grown up. The flipside of not being able to see what's inside a tree until you cut it down is that you can't see how its rings are growing until everything comes to a head. You can go away and come back without ever realising what conditions it endured or how much it has matured in that time._

Once she is far enough away from the pair so as not to risk disturbing them, she sends out the yellow sparks that she and her friends agreed would be their sign that Jenny has been found. The bursts of brilliant, crackling yellow head off in various directions, making their speedy way towards the other patrolling girls. Then, her mind still focused on lamenting Jenny's plight and deconstructing James' unexpected transformation, she makes her solitary way back to Gryffindor Tower.

And she is too lost in her thoughts about broken-hearted thirteen-year-olds and confusing seventeen-year-olds to even think about the cold.


	4. Controlled Burn

A/N: I ended up combining the plans for the next few chapters into one, so there will just be one more chapter after this.

* * *

Slipping into the seat next to him on the small lounge, she drapes a woollen blanket over their laps before snuggling into James' side. Almost instinctively, he settles his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer to him. A tender smile lights up her face in response, and she burrows into the warmth that is radiating off of him, enjoying the way their respective body heats are beginning to merge and overlap.

Not even the sound of their rowdy housemates bustling around them, celebrating the end of yet another year with true Gryffindor cheer, can distract her from him. In a way, it is like they are, in that moment, nothing more than background noise. She would usually be eager to join the festivities, but, after spending the day fixing last minute party problems and inspecting all of the refreshments to make sure nothing illicit had been snuck in, the act of socialising is beyond her. It's not as if it really matters anyway; everything seems to be going fine without her involvement, and they all know that they can come to her if they need help.

Besides, just curling up with James sounds like a much better way to welcome in the new year.

Wanting to be closer to him, she slips her hand under the blanket and intertwines it with his, smiling when he squeezes it in return.

Her boyfriend is, she is discovering, an incredibly tactile person. She already sort of gathered that from the way he interacted with his mates, clapping them on the back in jest when messing around and embracing them when they looked downcast. But she has since discovered she used to underestimate how far it goes. He always seems to want to be touching her, whether he's playfully shoving her while mucking around in the snow or holding her hand while walking to class or cuddling with her while sitting in the common room after dinner.

Going into the relationship, one of her biggest concerns was that she would eventually become an afterthought to him, someone who was special to him but always remained just outside of his inner circle of family and friends. After all, few people share a bond as tight as the Marauders', and she didn't know how she would fit into that. To her relief, however, that fear has already well and truly been shown to be unfounded. He is just as playful and affectionate and intimate with her as he is with them, albeit in a much less platonic way. And, while she's aware that he and his friends have, and will probably always have, a myriad of secrets that she isn't privy to, they have welcomed her into their fold with open arms.

Quite literally, in James' case.

"I love this," he murmurs into her ear, his low voice cutting through the noise around them. "Sitting here with you is… It's perfect."

She tilts her head so that her mouth is beside his ear, knowing that he won't hear her otherwise. Closing her eyes to gather the courage to verbalise her thoughts, she whispers back, "I do too. It… It sort of feels like home." He shivers against her as his hand tightens around hers, but she can't tell if it's because of her admission or because of the feel of her breath against his skin.

The past few weeks have been, against all expectations, the best of her life. Redefining their relationship and their boundaries has been a difficult process for both of them; after all of the past animosity, they couldn't just slip into a relationship as if it were a heated pool in the middle of summer, no matter how easy being around one another felt. Instead, like foresters controlled burning a savanna to make way for new growth, they have had to blaze through every misconception and hurtful memory in the hopes of making more space for their attraction to grow. It is only as the ashes of their past settle around them that they have been able to truly make progress with one another. But the process, as exerting and uncomfortable as it has been, has been so worth it. Every lie debunked and issue resolved has brought them closer together, letting them see each other for who they are rather than for whom the images they built up in their heads purport them to be.

And, along the way, he has managed to exceed all of her expectations. He is still immature and self-centred and more than a little hypocritical, but he's also loyal and sincere and endlessly entertaining. Being around him is like a constant adventure with someone who she _knows_ will never let her down, and whose back she will always have in return. As the fire burns behind them, they look forward, to the future, with faith in their ability to face it side by side. After all they have been through, it seems like there is nothing they can't handle together.

The sizzling flames may still lick at their heels as they try to escape the constricting vines of their turbulent past, but it has no hope of overcoming them. For, even when the heat of the past and of each other threatens to overcome them, the promise of new flora keeps them going, and they will rise like phoenixes made new by the ordeal.


	5. Midsummer Drought

A sudden gust of wind bursts through the open window like a jump scare, collecting up her hair and sending it splaying across her face. Irritated at the interruption, she swiftly gathers it up and secures it into a tight bun atop her head before returning to her notetaking. Despite Moody's focus on keeping mission plans simple in order to reduce the potential for error, so much information is discussed and dissected in these Order meetings that she knows she'll forget something if she isn't careful. It isn't like school anymore, where overlooking a stray comment might lose you a few marks on an upcoming essay. No; here, missing a piece of intel that later turns out to be crucial can be fatal.

 _War_. The word echoes through her head almost every day – as she dons her most practical clothes, as she exercises to keep herself in shape, as she bids her friends good luck and tries not to think about what might occur if chance happens to be against them that day. Lily and James were barely out of school when war descended on the wizarding world like a superstorm. Only those who were watching the skies saw the darkening clouds in time to realise the extent of their fury; for most of wizarding Britain, it simply seemed like the heavens opened up without warning, unleashing tears and pain and fighting upon them.

Lily and James were among the few to notice the early warning signs. His family connections and her bond with Slughorn tipped them both off to how serious the insurgent group was getting, and they therefore had time to prepare while they were still at school. For the last few months before they graduated, Lily secretly studied every book she could find on battle magic and wizarding warfare, and she and the Marauders made a habit of duelling in their spare time.

It was good. It was helpful. But it wasn't enough.

Not even that prepared them for the true realities of war. They thought it would, but it fell short in so many ways that have only become clear to them as time drags on. The past year has toughened them like nothing else could have, turning them from amateur tacticians and duellists into hardened warriors.

Glancing across at her husband, she can see the difference in his face alone. His expression is shuttered as he stares intently at the intense wizard who paces before them. James' larrikin side is as strong as ever, but he now has a dark maturity to him that he didn't have while they were at school. Despite the untroubled façade he wears like a second skin, the toll that the war is taking on him shows in his eyes. His gaze is often haunted and worn out, tired of watching friends grieve loved ones and schoolmates.

She wonders how their growth rings look now. How much is this trying weather ageing them? How many lines will form before this period of their lives passes? What will it look like in comparison to the rest of their lives?

Will there even _be_ life after this?

Her jaw tightens as she turns back to face Moody once more. War might be the closest thing she can imagine to hell on earth, but this one is a necessary evil. Giving the Death Eaters free reign is unthinkable, and Voldemort has proven time and time again that he will never willingly compromise or renounce his cause, so it's up to them to stop him, whatever it takes.

And they will. Even if it's not now, and even if it's not them, they or their successors or _their_ successors will rid the world of this foul creed. Each and every one of them are willing to sacrifice anything and everything – money; time; health; even life itself – to keep these madmen from actualising their goals.

That tree oh-so-many years ago might not have had a fairy guard in place to protect it from outsiders, but the Muggles and Muggle-borns these fanatics were trying to kill damn well would.

Even if it meant offering themselves up to be cut down in their place.

 _Until the very end._


End file.
